When in Doubt, Make Belief: Life Lessons from OCD

(Paperback)

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When in doubt, make belief. For author/news anchor Jeff Bell, these are words to live by. Literally. As someone who has spent much of his life battling severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (a.k.a. The Doubting Disease), Bell has had to overcome crippling uncertainty few people can imagine. In this powerful follow-up to his critically-acclaimed memoir, "Rewind, Replay, Repeat", Bell expounds on the principles of applied belief that allowed him to make such a remarkable recovery and the lessons he's learned while traveling the country talking about doubt. With the help of more than a dozen leading experts on OCD, anxiety, and applied belief, Bell offers readers struggling with chronic uncertainty - or just plain everyday worries - practical, life-changing strategies for making belief. Bell describes how everyone must push through doubt before they can accomplish anything, whether it is the everyday doubts about airline or highway safety and worries about our children to the more crippling doubt of people with OCD. He talks about the dueling directors within each of us, the default and greater good directors, and how to use the sense of getting to something good to overcome our default settings of fear- or doubt-driven decisions. The book describes what he defines as 'trap doors of doubt', which are false approaches to getting out of doubt, but which lead nowhere. Instead, Bell demonstrates how to shift from decisions based on fear and doubt to decisions made based on service and purpose, and how this approach can transform your life.

Reviews

"A much-needed work."
-- Larry King

"Jeff Bell's humanity, lovely sense of humor, and bravery will no doubt help many people who struggle with uncertainty learn how to 'make belief.' Thank you, dear Jeff."
-- Patty Duke, actress and advocate

"Jeff Bell has created a primer for dealing with both logical and illogical doubts. His honest and compelling account of his battle with obsessive compulsive disorder offers practical strategies straight from the belly of the beast."
-- Jonathan LaPook, MD, associate clinical professor of medicine, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center

"A breakthrough book...Jeff Bell's insights can make a profound difference for anyone struggling with uncertainty in their personal or professional lives."
-- Patrick Lencioni, New York Times bestselling author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and president of The Table Group, Inc.

"At once humble, human, practical, thoughtful, and masterful."
-- Stephen Hinshaw, PhD, psychology department chair, University of California, Berkeley

Author Bio

Jeff Bell is a longtime veteran of radio and television news and currently coanchors the afternoon news at KCBS Radio in San Francisco. A sought-after motivational speaker, Bell serves as a spokesperson for the nonprofit International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation (formerly the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation), to which he is donating a portion of this book's proceeds.

Michael Jenike, MD, Harvard Medical School professor of psychiatry, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.